Politics

IPCC: Our climate change future will be determined by politics – Quartz

Published

3 years ago

August 9, 2021

In the doomsday scenario of the world’s climate modelers, every leader acts a bit like Donald Trump. Resurgent nationalism breeds regional conflicts and competitiveness. Security concerns prompt countries to retreat inward. Global development slows and inequality festers, while cooperation on energy and food security goals withers. Major countries such as the US abdicate leadership on climate action as emissions rise, and temperatures soar to searing levels.

Technically, it’s known as the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 3 (SSP3), just one of many models published by scientists in 2016 to game out different futures, and included for the first time in reports developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But in casual conversation, many climate scientists simply call it “Trump World.”

“The biggest climate impact is not in the highest warming world,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the environmental research group Breakthrough Institute (he was not involved in designing the models). “The highest-impact scenario is SSP3, Trump World, because so much of world remains poorer.” A breakdown in international cooperation means emissions slow, but so do economies. Human suffering rises as societies are deprived of resources to adapt to rising temperatures.

As the world’s leaders gather later this year in Glasgow, Scotland to announce their climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, this will be just one of the many potential worlds facing them.

What’s different about the sixth IPCC assessment report

On Aug. 9, the IPCC released its sixth assessment report, a series of scientific reports to assess the scientific, technical, and socioeconomic dimensions of climate change.

Every five years or so, hundreds of scientists get together to present the best available science that conveys their understanding of what is happening to the climate, and what we can do about it. Their work is summarized in an IPCC assessment report, the sixth of which was released on Aug. 9.

SSP3—Trump World—is one of five socioeconomic scenarios in the latest report (AR6), assessing the scientific, technical, and socioeconomic dimensions of climate change. The scenarios play a critical role for world leaders who must decide what to do about the planet’s rising temperature.

For years, scientists had relied primarily on geophysical climate models to forecast what will happen as the Earth warms. Their models focused on physics: ocean currents, vegetation, atmospheric concentrations of methane and other greenhouse gases (GHG), along with hundreds of other factors. One of the original versions, built on a 1960s-era supercomputer, was built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (the first animation is below).

All of this data are fed into massive supercomputers that simulate how the climate system—the interaction between land, oceans, and atmosphere—behaves after we dump billions of tons of GHG into it.

What was missing from these climate models, however, was the biggest variable of all: our decisions about what kind of world we’re building.

Politics can profoundly affect how these models play out, since they largely dictate how much carbon dioxide and methane we pump into the atmosphere. Socioeconomic factors from childhood education to trade policies become an ever more important part of the climate equation over time.

Scientists made previous attempts to account for these influences. In the 1990s, the “SRES” scenarios considered factors like population and economic growth in climate projections. But the “Representative Concentration Pathways” (RCPs) adopted as the basis for later the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 excluded those factors entirely.

In parallel, researchers began developing five “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways” to see how the world might evolve. By combining these with the RCP climate-only models, the broader scenarios could tell us just how the world might evolve under different political circumstances, and how hard it will be to achieve emission reductions under them. Scientists could then better understand the interplay between the climate system and humanity’s future development.

Those researchers began publishing their initial findings in 2016, after the publication of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, so their work was pushed into this latest report. While scientists have been running and refining these models for years, they’re now part of the official narrative around our climate future.

From The Green Road to The Highway

Years of supercomputer time have now been devoted to giving us the ability to test very different assumptions about population, technology, economics, and politics that lead to very different worlds. Five baseline worlds laid out by the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway reveal “alternative pathways for future society,” says Hausfather.”We were missing some of the arrows in our quiver the last time around.”

This time the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway models illustrate, in a future without climate policy, just how different those worlds can be. The scenarios, as summarized from the scientific literature, cover five baselines offering alternative pathways for humanity.

Scenario	Description
SSP1: “Taking the Green Road:” Sustainability (low mitigation and adaption challenges)	The world shifts gradually, pervasively, toward a more sustainable path. Economic growth emphasizes human well-being, wise environmental stewardship, falling inequality, and lower resource and energy intensity.
SSP2: “Middle of the Road:” Historical patterns	Social, economic, and technological trends persist. Development, income growth and sustainable development proceeds unevenly. Slow progress, moderate global population growth. Societal and environmental changes remain.
SSP3: “A Rocky Road:” Regional Rivalry / highly challenging	Nationalism surges. Policies shift toward security at the expense of development and environmental protection amid rising regional conflicts and a decline in international cooperation. Economic and environmental degradation worsens over time.
SSP4: “A Road Divided:” Inequality	Countries (and societies) stratify between rich nations dominating knowledge sectors of the global economy, and poorer nations in labor-intensive, low-tech sectors. Social cohesion degrades. Social conflict intensifies. Technology is not shared equally. Environmental policies primarily serve middle and high-income areas.
SSP5 “Taking the Highway:” Fossil-fueled development	Full exploitation of fossil fuel resources produces wealth, rapid technological progress, and human capital development, but leads to much higher emissions. There is faith in the ability to effectively manage social and ecological systems, including by geo-engineering if necessary.

The differences are stark. Under the green road (SSP1), emissions may peak as early as 2040—or not at all under SSP5, where temperatures soar well past the 2ºC increase that scientists say are likely to acidify oceans, intensify storms and coastal flooding, and fuel roasting heat waves and droughts. You can see how emissions and global mean temperature fare under different scenarios below with climate action.

Carbon Brief

CO2 emissions (left) in gigatonnes (GtCO2) and global mean surface temperature change relative to pre-industrial levels (right) with no-climate-policy.

A diverse range of “what if” scenarios

Of course, all of these outcomes are approximations at best. And some of the underlying assumptions are tenuous (SSP3 asserts that most world leaders simultaneously share nationalist governing philosophies) if not altogether implausible (for instance, the assumption that solar power will be more expensive in 2050 than today). But the scenarios aren’t meant to be precise mirrors of future reality. They’re designed to explore a diverse range of “what if” scenarios revealing just how hard it will be to tackle climate change under different conditions. Our future will be a fluid mix of these scenarios over time.

“These are very idealized pathways,” says climatologist Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway. “In reality, we have a world that is amidst all these different approaches. Our world is a unique world.”

So while none of these scenarios describes our world perfectly, we seem to be moving between them regularly. The “Trump World” of SSP3 might have seemed plausible just a few years ago. But Trump has since lost re-election, Europe’s right-wing swing is stalled, and Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is battling for political survival.

Indeed, there are already signs that political momentum might shift behind more ambitious climate targets. “In climate change, there aren’t too many silver linings,” says Hausfather, “but we are finally starting to see commitments from countries that are mainly in line with what’s needed.”

Today, a concerted climate effort, or a breakthrough technology such as cheap energy storage, could change baseline scenarios in a matter of years.

A multiverse of potential realities

Policymakers now face a multiverse of possible worlds developed by climate modelers. And their decisions, in part, will decide which scenario plays out. The good news, says Peters, is that the chances for the worst-case scenario, a catastrophic world with a global mean temperature rise above 5ºC, now seem lower. But then so do the odds of a base-case 1.5ºC world where emissions peak and then drop to zero by around 2050.

In this week’s IPCC report, researchers say we’re now “very likely” to exceed 1.°C to 1.8°C of warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100, even in a very low GHG emissions scenario (SSP1-1.9). This suggests a “middle of the road” scenario best describes our emissions trajectory. “We’re not following a 1.5ºC or a 5ºC emissions trajectory,” says Peters. “We’re going somewhere in between.” Hausfather agrees. The most likely emissions scenario, he estimates, puts us on track for about 3ºC of warming by the end of the century, to an average temperature the Earth hasn’t experienced for more than 3 million years. That would severely test many countries’ ability to adapt, and for the impacts for some, such as islands nations, would be catastrophic.

And after that? We don’t know. The IPCC’s models only extend to about the end of the century. In the next IPCC report, researchers can be expected to start looking out toward 2150 and beyond, well within the lifetime for the children of someone born today. ”The world doesn’t end in 2100,” says Hausfather, “even though our models do.”

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Politics

‘Disgraceful:’ N.S. Tory leader slams school’s request that military remove uniform

Published

5 days ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.

Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.

A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”

Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.

“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.

In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”

“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”

Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.

Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.

Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.

“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.

“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.

“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.

“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”

“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Politics

Saskatchewan NDP’s Beck holds first caucus meeting after election, outlines plans

Published

5 days ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.

Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.

She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.

Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.

Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.

The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Politics

Nova Scotia election: Liberals say province’s immigration levels are too high

Published

6 days ago

November 7, 2024

Anne Joseph

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.

Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.

“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.

“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”

The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.

In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.

“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”

In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.

“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”

Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.

Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”

In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.

In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.

“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”

Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.

“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”

The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.

“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.

“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax

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